


the distance between us (i think it's here to stay)

by icanhearyouglaring



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Adjusting, Crock Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 08:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17721371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icanhearyouglaring/pseuds/icanhearyouglaring
Summary: Things change when Paula leaves. Things change when she returns. (crock family feelings)





	the distance between us (i think it's here to stay)

_**Someone has to be here when Mom gets out.** _

-o-

It’s a thought that’s shaped nearly every decision Artemis has made since the day her mother went away. 

When her father steps up their training regiment, Artemis grits her teeth and fights harder, determined to keep up, to stay strong, to overcome. Mom will need her when she gets home. She knows Jade won’t be much help.

-o-

_**In this family, it’s every girl for herself.** _

-o-

A year after Jade deserts her, Artemis slips out her bedroom window and  _runs_. She takes self-made shortcuts to the bus station. The unspent lunch money in the pocket of her jeans is just enough to buy a one-way ticket to Blüdhaven. She’s next in line at the ticket counter when a heavy hand falls on her shoulder. 

“You going somewhere, baby girl?” Lawrence asks, tightening the grip on her shoulder.

“To see Mom,” Artemis says, defiantly pulling her arm out of his hold. 

His hand moves to clench the scruff of her hoodie. 

Lawrence laughs twice, each sound grating on Artemis’s ears. “I don’t think so. It’s a school night.” 

“Like  _you_  care.” 

The venom in her tone doesn’t do much to counter the tears in her eyes as he drives her back home. 

(Her mother tries to tell her, years from that moment, that she never wanted her daughters to see her in prison, that Lawrence was just trying to keep his word for once, but the words feel more like salt in a wound than an explanation.)

-o-

**_My life. Waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for something to change._ **

**_-o-_ **

Artemis watches her mother scarf down her hastily prepared spaghetti with muted interest. She takes her own bite and frowns at the bitter taste. The dinner table still looks empty, even with her mother sitting across from her, closer than she’s been in six years. Artemis puts down her fork and sighs. She really thought it’d feel different. 

“You have homework?” Her mother asks. 

Artemis swallows down a scoff, puts a smile on her face, and lightly says, “Mom, it’s summer.”

Paula’s attention quickly returns to her meal, and no matter how much she wants to enjoy this moment, Artemis can’t help but think,  _That’s it? That’s what I’ve been waiting for?_

She wants to feel more than  _this,_ whatever  _this_  feeling is. The desire to drill her mother with questions and fill her in on every little thing she left out of her overly-embellished letters. She wants to tell her about the night she went away, how she cried herself to sleep on the bathroom floor, how Lawrence and Jade fought every day and night, how much it hurt when Jade left her on her own, how she’d tried so hard to stay awake in class the entire year after Jade left because her father drove her to exhaustion, how much it  _hurt_  to know Paula knew next to  _nothing_  about who her daughter had become in her absence, about who she wanted to become to please the woman she only really knew through polite, distanced letters and piecemeal childhood memories. 

But then she looks across the table at a ghost of the mother she’d kept alive in her head all these years, shoves that feeling back into the pit of her chest, and eats another meatball despite her sudden loss of appetite. 

_This can’t be all I’ve been waiting for._

_-o-_

**_I did the time, but I’m back now. And Artemis is my priority._ **

-o-

Artemis watches with wide eyes as the cops arrest the wannabe thief she’d pinned to the ground only minutes before. She stays hidden in the shadows and watches until the police car rounds a corner and disappears from sight. It’s then she realizes how wide her smile is and how  _good_  she feels inside. 

_This is it,_  she thinks gleefully, climbing up the fire escape of the nearest apartment building. 

She runs along the rooftops, using her grapple when necessary, and spends the rest of the night taking names and kicking ass. Every win lightens her spirit, and by the time dawn creeps up on her, she’s almost forgotten the reason she’d taken off on this crimefighting spree. She’s in her element–  _finally – finally!_

It isn’t until she slips into her bedroom, changes into pajamas, and steps into the kitchen that the tight feeling in her chest returns. Her mother sits in the living room, hands full of papers and her tightly pinched gaze locked in on the stacks in her hands. Artemis freezes when her mother looks up and smiles.

“You’re up early,” Paula notes. 

“Mhm,” Artemis says, nodding tightly as she hurries to grab a glass of water. 

“Do you have plans for today?”

“Mhm,” Artemis says, before gulping down her water and leaving the cup in the sink. 

Paula’s smile straightens into a thin line and her brows pinch as she examines Artemis. Artemis stills, feeling about as transparent as a window under her mother’s gaze.

“Artemis, I need to tell you something,” Paula says slowly, putting the papers down on the coffee table in front of her. “Come here.”

“Okay,” Artemis says, walking into the living room. She takes a seat on the couch and nods for her mother to continue.

Paula’s hands grip the arms of her wheelchair as she takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

“Your father won’t be coming back,” she finally says, in a strong tone, one that sounds more familiar to Artemis. “I  _won’t_  have his business in this house.”

Artemis keeps her expression neutral as she tries to decipher her mother’s firm words.  _Is she talking about me?_ Artemis frowns.  _Does she think I–_  Artemis clenches her fists in her lap. Artemis knows exactly what her father said to her mother that night.  _She’s one of us._  

“Good,” Artemis clips before she grits her teeth. 

Paula gives her a long, searching look. “What’s wrong?” 

Artemis bites down on her bottom lip before standing in a hurry.

“Artemis–” Paula says, reaching for her daughter’s arm. 

Artemis pulls her arm back and glares down at her mother. 

“No,” she says roughly, crossing her arms against her chest, “do you  _really_  think I’mlike  _him_?”

“Artemis, please, sit down–”

“No! Answer me! Because if you do, then you don’t know me at all!” Artemis’s voice cracks and after a night of heart-pounding crime-fighting, she doesn’t have the energy to stop the tears in her eyes from rolling down her cheeks. “You don’t! You really don’t! How could you?” 

Paula’s eyes widen for a split second and that’s all Artemis has time to notice before her mother grabs her by the forearm and yanks her down to her level. Paula holds Artemis’s face between her hands and forces her to look into her own red-rimmed eyes. 

“I know,” Paula says hoarsely. “I’ve been gone a long time. As much as it hurt me to be away from my girls, I can’t imagine how it must have been for you. Artemis, I lost Jade to the Life”– her voice breaks as she wipes a tear from Artemis’s cheek with her thumb– “I don’t want to lose you, too. Please don’t blame me for being cautious. I  _can’t_  lose another daughter.”

“Mom,” Artemis rasps, reaching to hold her mother’s hands.

“Please, Artemis,” Paula pleads, “let me get to know you.”

-o-

Later, when Artemis finally makes her way to bed, mid-day with swollen eyes and a fuller heart, she takes a minute to stare at Jade’s empty bed.  _It was worth it,_ she tells herself.  _All of it._

_Someone had to be there when Mom got out._

_Someone had to be there for **this**._


End file.
